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Anthony Veneziano Signs With KBO’s SSG Landers

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The SSG Landers of the Korea Baseball Organization announced this evening that they’ve signed left-hander Anthony Veneziano. The KHG Sports Management client receives a $750K salary and can make another $100K in incentives.

As noted by Dan Kurtz of MyKBO, the signing comes after the Landers pulled out of their agreement with right-hander Drew VerHagen. The club’s medical team had flagged an undisclosed issue with VerHagen’s physical. He’ll return to free agency. That opened a roster spot for a second non-Pacific foreign pitcher alongside righty Mitch White, who is back for his second season with the team. They targeted Veneziano, who was granted his release from a minor league contract with the Rangers to pursue the opportunity.

The 28-year-old Veneziano heads overseas for the first time in his career. He’d been in affiliated ball since 2019, when the Royals took him as a 10th-round draftee out of Coastal Carolina. Veneziano worked as a starter for most of his minor league career. He has been a full-time reliever in the big leagues, only starting one of 40 appearances as an opener. Veneziano has suited up with Kansas City, Miami and St. Louis. He owns a 3.98 ERA with a 21.3% strikeout rate over 40 2/3 MLB innings.

While Veneziano’s big league track record is reasonably solid, he’s coming off a tough season working out of the bullpen in Triple-A. That limited him to a minor league deal. He’ll instead get a guaranteed contract that pays close to what he would have made had he cracked the Texas bullpen. It’s likely he’ll also get an opportunity to build back up as a starter. The foreign player limit for KBO teams means they’re unlikely to use one of those spots on players they’d project as relievers. If he pitches well as a starter for a season or two in Korea, he’d be better positioned to explore MLB opportunities down the line.

Mitch White, Guillermo Heredia Re-Sign With KBO’s SSG Landers

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The SSG Landers have re-signed a pair of former MLB players for the 2026 KBO season: right-hander Mitch White and outfielder Guillermo Heredia. White joined the Landers last year, while Heredia has been on the team since the 2023 campaign. Dan Kurtz of MyKBO relayed the news in English earlier today. White is represented by Apex Baseball, while Heredia is represented by PRIME.

White, 31, appeared in 71 games over five MLB seasons, pitching for the Dodgers, Blue Jays, Giants, and Brewers. While he bounced between the bullpen and the rotation in MLB and Triple-A, he took on a full-time starting role in his first KBO season. Averaging 5 2/3 innings per start, he pitched to a 2.87 ERA and 3.44 FIP, striking out 24.4% of batters he faced and walking just 7.8%. For context, the league-average ERA in the KBO this past season was 4.31, while the league-average strikeout and walk rates were 19.7% and 9.1%, respectively. White also induced groundballs on 54% of balls in plays and limited his opponents to only nine home runs on the season.

Heredia, soon to be 35, has been one of the KBO’s premier contact hitters over the past three years. He led the league in batting average in 2024 and ’25 (min. 400 PA) and ranked fifth in ’23. While he isn’t known for his power, he’s a safe bet for double-digit home runs, and his overall offensive output (per wRC+) has been at least 34% better than league average in all three of his seasons with the Landers. Prior to his KBO career, the veteran outfielder played in seven MLB seasons, bouncing between the Mariners, Rays, Pirates, Mets, and Braves.

White and Heredia join new signings Drew VerHagen and Shota Takeda as the four foreign players on the Landers’ 2026 roster. VerHagen, a veteran of both MLB and NPB, signed with the team earlier this month, essentially replacing fellow right-hander Drew Anderson. Himself a former MLB and NPB pitcher, Anderson parlayed an excellent 2025 campaign with the Landers into a one-year, $7MM guarantee from the Detroit Tigers. Takeda, another right-handed pitcher, spent the first 14 years of his professional career with the Fukuoka Softbank Hawks organization, though Tommy John surgery kept him from pitching for the NPB club in 2024 or ’25.

Owen White Signs With KBO’s Hanwha Eagles

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The Hanwha Eagles of the Korea Baseball Organization announced that they have signed right-hander Owen White. The Wasserman client will make $1MM in the form of a $200K signing bonus and a salary of $800K. Hat tip to Dan Kurtz of MyKBO.net for relaying the news, translated into English.

White, now 26, was a notable prospect a couple of years ago. The Rangers drafted him 55th overall in 2018 but his professional debut wouldn’t come until a few years later. He missed 2019 due to Tommy John surgery and then the Covid-19 pandemic wiped out the minor leagues in 2020.

Once he was back in action, he hit the mound running. Between 2021 and 2022, he tossed 115 2/3 innings in the minors, allowing 3.42 earned runs per nine. His 7.5% walk rate was strong and his 34.1% strikeout rate excellent.

The Rangers gave him a 40-man spot in the 2022-23 offseason to keep him out of the Rule 5 draft. Going into the 2023 campaign, Baseball America ranked White as the #59 prospect in the league.

Since then, however, White has hit a number of speed bumps. He got shelled in his first major league appearances and his results also backed up in the minors. He tossed 207 2/3 innings for the Triple-A Round Rock Express over 2023 and 2024 with a 4.90 ERA. The Express play in the hitter-friendly Pacific Coast League but White’s 18.3% strikeout rate and 11.3% walk rate were both poor figures.

That performance pushed White to the fringe of the Texas roster. He was designated for assignment in December 2024. His past prospect status still attracted a number of teams. Prior to the 2025 season, he went to the Reds, Yankees and White Sox via small deals or waiver claims.

He spent 2025 with the Sox but was mostly kept on optional assignment. He threw only seven big league innings, allowing seven earned runs. Combined with his brief MLB appearances with the Rangers, he now has an unfortunate 12.86 ERA in 14 total innings in the majors.

He also tossed 81 Triple-A innings in Chicago’s system. His 4.44 ERA wasn’t awful and he got grounders on 46.7% of balls in play but his 18.8% strikeout rate and 12.4% walk rate were subpar.

He exhausted his final option season in 2025, meaning he will be out of options going forward, making it harder for him to cling to a roster spot. The Sox passed him through waivers unclaimed in October and he became a minor league free agent shortly thereafter.

If White had stayed in North America, he surely would have been limited to minor league deals. Even if he earned a roster spot with some club in 2026, his salary likely would have been near the $780K league minimum. By heading overseas, he gets a bigger guarantee and an opportunity to showcase himself on a notable stage.

It has become quite common for pitchers to reinvent themselves in Asia and return to North America for big paydays. This offseason alone has seen Cody Ponce, Anthony Kay, Drew Anderson, Foster Griffin and Ryan Weiss get deals with MLB clubs after pitching in Japan or South Korea in 2025. They all got at least a $2.6MM guarantee with Ponce getting all the way up to $30MM. White is still quite young and could go down this path if he’s able to find a new gear with the Eagles.

Photo courtesy of Jayne Kamin-Oncea, Imagn Images

Harold Castro Signs With KBO’s Kia Tigers

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The Kia Tigers of the Korea Baseball Organization have confirmed the four foreign players who will join their team for the 2026 season (h/t to Dan Kurtz of MyKBO). The foursome includes right-hander James Naile, who is entering his third year with the Tigers and whose signing was announced last month; right-hander Adam Oller, who re-signed for a second year with the club; infielder Jarryd Dale, a former Padres prospect and Australian Baseball League player who spent 2025 with NPB’s Orix Buffaloes; and utility player Harold Castro, a six-year MLB veteran who is heading overseas for the first time in his career.

Castro, a client of the MAS+ Agency, spent more than a decade in the Detroit Tigers organization. He signed in 2010 as an international free agent out of Venezuela, and eight years later, he made his big league debut at Comerica Park. Over parts of five seasons with MLB’s Tigers, he played in 351 games, appearing at every position except catcher. His .286 batting average was impressive, and his defensive versatility was valuable, but that was about all he contributed. He didn’t hit for power, he rarely walked, and his defense graded out poorly (albeit in small samples) wherever he played. 

Detroit non-tendered Castro after the 2022 season, and he signed a minor league deal with the Rockies. The utility man cracked Colorado’s roster out of camp and stuck around all season, though he struggled to hit even at Coors Field. Finishing with a .589 OPS and 45 wRC+, Castro produced a -1.5 FanGraphs WAR, third-last among all MLB players in 2023.

The Rockies cut Castro soon after the season ended, and he would eventually sign with the Toros de Tijuana of the Mexican League. He hit well with the Toros in 2024 and even better for Leones del Caracas of the Venezuelan Winter League the following offseason, enough so that he landed a minor league offer from the Royals for the 2025 campaign. Despite Castro’s best efforts at Triple-A  – 21 home runs, a .307 batting average, and a 129 wRC+ in 99 contests – he never got the call to the majors. Yet, he clearly impressed the Kia Tigers, who signed the 32-year-old to a contract worth $1MM USD for 2026. He replaces Patrick Wisdom on their roster, who was no slouch in his first KBO season, hitting 35 home runs with a 126 wRC+.

Padres Sign Sung-Mun Song

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December 22nd: The Padres officially announced their signing of Song today. The deal is actually a four-year pact worth $15MM, as per Ronald Blum of the Associated Press, with the fourth year existing as a player option for Song.  There is also a $7MM mutual option for the 2030 season with a $1M buyout.  Song will get a $2.5MM salary in 2026, $3MM in 2027, $3.5MM in 2028, and (if he doesn’t opt out) $4MM in 2029.  The Padres will also pay Song a $1MM signing bonus broken up into a $500K installment in January, and then the other $500K coming in January 2027.

Song would also receive a $1MM bonus for winning NL Rookie of the Year honors, and there is a salary escalator if he achieves a top-five finish in MVP voting.  The Heroes will receive a $3MM posting fee from the Padres, representing the standard 20% posting fee attached to any contract worth $25MM or less for a KBO League player.

December 19th: The Padres are in agreement with infielder Sung Mun Song on a contract, according to a report from Robert Murray of FanSided. According to Francys Romero of BeisbolFR, it’s a three-year deal that guarantees Song around $13MM.

Song, 29, has broken out in a big way over his last two seasons playing for the KBO’s Kiwoom Heroes. After typically being a slightly below average hitter by that league’s standards in the early years of his career, Song exploded with a .340/.408/.518 (143 wRC+) slash line across 602 plate appearances during the 2024 season. He flashed 20/20 potential at the plate and walked at a career-high 10.6% clip while primarily playing third base for the Heroes. He followed up on that season with an even better year in 2025, as he slashed .315/.387/.530 (151 wRC+) with 26 homers, 25 steals, and 37 doubles in 646 trips to the plate.

Those dominant back-to-back campaigns in the KBO league were enough to convince Song to try his hand in the majors, and the Heroes made Song’s goal a reality when they posted him for MLB clubs last month. That opened a 30-day window (set to close on the 21st of December) for Song to negotiate with MLB clubs. Song has typically been viewed by scouts as a step below MLB Gold Glove winner Ha-Seong Kim, the best South Korean player to make the jump to the majors in recent years, and there’s been some debate about whether he’s more of a utility player or a proper starter at the big league level.

Song’s reported price tag is certainly affordable enough for the Padres to stomach in the event he’s more of a bench piece than a regular. A multi-year pact that pays Song less than $5MM annually figures to be quite affordable for San Diego; Jose Iglesias earned $3MM last year after being added to San Diego’s roster on a minor league deal to fill out the club’s bench mix. Song figures to fill a similar role this year to the one Iglesias held last season, chipping in around the infield and serving as a pinch-hitter.

While Song has primarily played third base throughout his career in the KBO league, that position is manned by Manny Machado in San Diego. Perhaps the Padres will look to get Machado occasional DH reps headed into his age-33 campaign, but aside from those occasional fill-in days Song figures to spend most of his time at first and second base, both of which are positions he logged significant time at in South Korea. Jake Cronenworth is currently slated to serve as San Diego’s second baseman next year, though his name has popped up in trade talks this winter. First base meanwhile, is unsettled after the departure of Luis Arraez. Gavin Sheets has some experience at the position but may be better suited for DH duties. As a result, first base could be Song’s best shot at regular reps, though it’s possible a trade of Cronenworth or the addition of a more traditional first base option like Paul Goldschmidt or Rhys Hoskins changes things.

The signing of Song comes just one day after the club agreed to reunite with right-hander Michael King on a three-year, opt-out laden contract. According to RosterResource, the Padres project for a payroll just under $217MM in 2026, with a payroll of nearly $258MM for luxury tax purposes. That’s before the addition of Song to the payroll, which at the currently reported numbers would push the team’s payroll up to around $221MM and around $262MM for luxury tax purposes. That would put them just barely below the second, $264MM luxury tax threshold for 2026.

If the Padres don’t want to go over that line, they would need to subtract salary from the roster to make virtually any more additions to the roster. That’s far from impossible, as rumors have percolated around not only Cronenworth but also players like right-hander Nick Pivetta and Ramon Laureano. A trade of Pivetta would save $20.5MM in 2026 and $13.75MM for luxury tax purposes. Cronenworth being dealt would save roughly $12.3MM in 2026 and $11.5MM for luxury tax purposes. Laureano wouldn’t save nearly as much money, as he’s due just $6.5MM next season on the final year of his contract.

Of course, it’s also possible the Padres simply stand pat from here, though doing so without adding another bat to the first base/DH mix would certainly be risky. Perhaps an addition on the trade market that comes with a lower financial cost could make some sense if San Diego neither wants to exceed the second luxury tax threshold nor trade salary to make room in the budget. Players like Triston Casas of the Red Sox and Mark Vientos of the Mets could potentially be available this winter and remain under affordable team control.

KBO’s Doosan Bears Sign Chris Flexen, Zach Logue

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Veteran right-hander Chris Flexen is headed back to the Doosan Bears of the Korea Baseball Organization, the team announced. The Bears also announced the re-signing former big league lefty Zach Logue. Flexen, a client of O’Connell Sports Management, is guaranteed $1MM. Logue, an MSM Sports Management client, is guaranteed $1.1MM.

Flexen, 31, parlayed his first KBO stint into a two-year, $4.75MM contract with the Mariners. That contract included a club/vesting option that Flexen vested at $8MM with a strong performance in 2021-22, when he tossed a combined 317 1/3 innings of 3.66 ERA ball. His 16.5% strikeout rate was well below average, but Flexen showed good command (6.8% walk rate) and did a decent job avoiding hard contact.

The 2023 season proved to be a nightmare. Flexen was rocked for a 7.71 ERA in 42 innings with the Mariners before being designated for assignment. He was traded to the Mets, but New York only took on his contract as a financial counterweight to add reliever Trevor Gott without giving up much in the way of a return. Flexen was immediately designated for assignment by the Mets, who released him the following week.

Flexen has since signed with the Rockies, White Sox and Cubs. He was hit hard in 12 starts for the Rox down the stretch in ’23 but still landed a big league deal with the White Sox the following offseason. The South Siders gave Flexen 30 starts, during which he was a durable fifth starter, logging 160 frames with a 4.95 ERA. The Cubs added Flexen ahead of the 2025 campaign, and while he pitched to a tidy 3.09 ERA in 43 2/3 frames there, the right-hander did so with a 12.4% strikeout rate. The Cubs released Flexen in August, and he didn’t sign anywhere down the stretch.

Overall, Flexen parlayed his strong 2020 season in South Korea into another 147 MLB games and 623 1/3 innings of 4.48 ERA ball. He earned more than $15MM along the way and will now head back to the Bears, for whom he previously notched a 3.01 ERA in 21 starts (116 1/3 innings pitched).

As for Logue, this’ll be his second straight season with the Bears. He racked up 176 innings out of the Doosan rotation in 2025, turning in a tidy 2.81 earned run average. Logue doesn’t throw hard — he averaged 90.3 mph on his heater during parts of three MLB seasons — or miss bats at a particularly high level, but he used strong command and ground-ball tendencies to navigate a hitter-friendly league quite nicely. He set down 21.6% of opponents on strikes against a 5.4% walk rate and with a 53.8% grounder rate.

Logue, 30 in April, was a 2017 ninth-rounder by the Jays, who flipped him to the A’s in their four-player package to acquire Matt Chapman. He lasted only one season (2022) in Oakland, stumbling to a 6.79 ERA in his first 57 MLB frames. He’s since made brief appearances with the Tigers and Dodgers. In 70 MLB innings, he has a 7.20 ERA, a 17.6% strikeout rate and a 6.9% walk rate. ESPN’s Jeff Passan notes that Logue at least explored the possibility of coming back to North America before re-signing in the KBO. Another strong season could put him in line for a major league look next winter, particularly if he adds some velocity and/or noticeably ups his strikeout and swinging-strike rates.

Trenton Brooks, Nathan Wiles Sign With KBO’s Kiwoom Heroes

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The Kiwoom Heroes of the Korea Baseball Organization announced their four foreign-player signings for the 2026 season, as relayed by Yoo Jee-ho of Yonhap News Agency. They have re-signed right-hander Raúl Alcantara, who pitched for the Heroes in 2025. They have also added first baseman Trenton Brooks, right-hander Nathan Wiles and Japanese right-hander Yuto Kanakubo. Alcantara will earn a $700K salary with $200K in incentives available. Wiles gets a $910K salary. Brooks gets $700K plus $150K in incentives. Kanakubo gets $100K with $30K in incentives available.

For many years, KBO teams have been limited to having three non-Korean players on their rosters. Starting in 2026, that number will jump to four, but one must be from another Asian country or Australia. In effect, KBO teams are still capped at three North American players, but the new rule has allowed the Heroes to add Kanakubo.

Brooks, 30, has had a lot of minor league success but hasn’t yet translated it to the big leagues. That’s a pretty common arc for a player heading overseas. He’s had brief looks in the majors with the Padres and Giants, getting 72 plate appearances in total with a dismal .136/.208/.212 line. But from 2021 to 2025, he took 1,994 plate appearances at the Triple-A level with a 13.9% walk rate and 16.6% strikeout rate while launching 66 home runs. His combined line of .279/.382/.472 translated to a wRC+ of 117.

Despite the consistently solid offense, Brooks was stuck in Quad-A status for a while. That’s perhaps due to his limited defensive abilities, as he’s mostly a first baseman with some experience in the outfield. He didn’t get to make his major league debut until he was almost 29 years old. The Padres passed him though waivers unclaimed in August.

If had he stayed in North America for the 2026 season, he likely would have been limited to minor league deals. By heading to South Korea, he will secure a guaranteed salary pretty close to the MLB minimum, which will be $780K next year. If he thrives with the Heroes, he could try to come back to the majors down the road or he could parlay his success into another deal in Asia.

Wiles, 27, just made his major league debut by tossing one inning for Atlanta back in April. He spent the majority of the season on optional assignment. He logged 112 2/3 innings at the Triple-A level with a 3.04 earned run average, 22.2% strikeout rate and 7.2% walk rate. He has generally had good control throughout his minor league career but without huge strikeout or ground ball totals.

Atlanta released him in November. Like Brooks, he was likely looking at minor league deals if he stayed in affiliated ball. Heading overseas gives him a chance to pitch on a bigger stage. Even if he had secured a major league deal, his salary would likely have been less than this deal with the Heroes.

Pitchers returning from pitching in Asia has become a popular route to take. Just this offseason, Cody Ponce, Drew Anderson, Anthony Kay, Foster Griffin and Ryan Weiss have signed multi-million-dollar deals after stints in Japan or South Korea. Wiles is still relatively young and could follow in those footsteps.

Alcantara pitched in the majors in 2016 and 2017. He’s been pitching for various Japanese and Korean clubs since then. He spent 2025 with the Heroes and gave them 121 innings with a 3.27 ERA. Kanakubo is a 26-year-old who has spent his career with the Yakult Swallows in Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball but that club has mostly kept him in the minors. He hasn’t topped 14 innings pitched at the top level in Japan in any of the past four seasons.

Photo courtesy of Denis Poroy, Imagn Images

Elvin Rodriguez Signs With KBO’s Lotte Giants

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Free agent right-hander Elvin Rodriguez has signed with the Lotte Giants of the Korea Baseball Organization, the team announced. He’ll receive $1MM for the 2026 campaign. Lotte also announced the re-signing of outfielder Victor Reyes at $1.4MM and the signing of right-hander Jeremy Beasley for $1MM.

Rodriguez, 27, spent the 2023-24 seasons with the Yakult Swallows in Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball, parlaying that into a big league deal with the Brewers last winter. He wound up pitching 19 2/3 innings in the majors between Milwaukee and Baltimore but was tagged for 20 runs in that time. The 2025 season was Rodriguez’s second with at least some MLB work. He also briefly appeared with Detroit back in 2022. He’s surrendered 55 runs in 52 2/3 MLB frames but notched a sub-2.00 ERA in 45 1/3 innings as a reliever during his 2024 season in NPB.

Reyes, another former Tiger, is entering his third season with the KBO’s Giants. The 31-year-old has slashed .339/.390/.493 in 1275 plate appearances without missing a game during his first two KBO campaigns. Reyes previously played in parts of five seasons with Detroit from 2018-22, hitting a combined .264/.294/.379 in a nearly identical sample of plate appearances (1280) to his KBO workload thus far. While he didn’t carve out a role as a big league regular, this year’s deal with Lotte brings him up to $3.35MM worth of guaranteed earnings during his three years in South Korea (not including some incentives that he’s surely unlocked along the way).

Beasley, 30, pitched in the majors with the D-backs and Blue Jays from 2020-22, tossing a combined 24 2/3 innings with a 5.84 ERA. The right-hander has a solid track record in Triple-A and has spent the past three seasons pitching for the Hanshin Tigers in Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball. He’s pitched to a 2.82 ERA in his three seasons with Hanshin but spent the bulk of this past season with the Tigers’ farm club. As with Rodriguez and Reyes, Beasley never really found his footing in the majors but has carved out a nice living pitching professionally overseas. He’s still young enough that an eventual MLB comeback can’t be entirely ruled out, but he’ll need to take a step forward after last year’s rocky showing in Japan.

Astros Sign Ryan Weiss To Major League Deal

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December 11th: Chandler Rome of The Athletic reports that Weiss’s club option for 2027 is worth $5M with a $500K buyout.

December 9th: The Astros have now officially announced their signing of Weiss. The opened two roster spots last week by outrighting Taylor Trammell and Logan VanWey. Their 40-man count is now at 39.

December 2nd: The Astros have reportedly agreed to a major league deal with right-hander Ryan Weiss, who has been pitching in Korea lately. Weiss is guaranteed $2.6MM and there’s a club option for 2027. The Sports One Athlete Management client could potentially earn $10MM over the course of the pact. The Astros have a full 40-man roster and will need to make a corresponding move to make this official.

It’s a bit of an early birthday present for Weiss, who turns 29 next Wednesday. A fourth-round draft pick of the Diamondbacks back in 2018, he showed enough promise as a minor leaguer that the Snakes added him to their 40-man in November of 2021 to keep him out of the Rule 5 draft. He had just tossed 78 1/3 minor league innings in that 2021 season with a 4.60 earned run average and 9.5% walk rate but his 27% strikeout rate was quite good.

He struggled in the minors in 2022 and was placed on waivers, with the Royals placing a claim. Kansas City then passed him through waivers unclaimed in October of 2022. The Royals then released him in May of 2023. At that point, Weiss had tossed 76 1/3 innings on the farm, dating back to the start of 2022. In that time, he allowed 6.96 earned runs per nine.

That release kicked off a nomadic period for Weiss. He then landed with the High Point Rockers of the independent Atlantic League. After a few months there, with a 4.61 ERA, he signed with the Fubon Guardians of Taiwan’s Chinese Professional Baseball League. He had a decent 2.32 ERA there, though in just 31 innings. He started 2024 back with the Rockers, posting a 4.61 ERA over nine starts.

In June of 2024, he signed with the Hanwha Eagles of the Korea Baseball Organization. It was with that club that he seemed to unlock a new gear. In 2024, he gave the Eagles 16 starts with a 3.73 ERA, 25.5% strikeout rate, 7.6% walk rate and 48.2% ground ball rate. He returned to the Eagles in 2025 and took the ball 30 more times. He logged 178 2/3 innings with a 2.87 ERA, 28.6% strikeout rate, 7.7% walk rate and 48.5% ground ball rate.

Weiss then pitched in relief for the Eagles in the playoffs but the Astros plan to utilize him as a starter. Houston has plenty of uncertainty in their rotation mix. They just lost Framber Valdez to free agency. Luis Garcia required another Tommy John surgery late in 2025 and has been jettisoned from the roster. Hayden Wesneski, Ronel Blanco and Brandon Walter also had TJS in 2025 and are slated to begin next year on the injured list.

That left the Astros going into 2026 with Hunter Brown and a heap of question marks behind him. Cristian Javier will be in the mix but he had a 4.62 ERA in 2025 after returning from his own lengthy surgery layoff. Lance McCullers Jr. has had all kind of injury troubles and put up a 6.51 ERA this year. Spencer Arrighetti was good in 2024 but spent most of 2025 on the IL and only made seven starts. Jason Alexander had some passable results this year but he’s a journeyman depth guy who’s about to turn 33. J.P. France spent most of 2025 recovering from shoulder surgery. Colton Gordon and AJ Blubaugh are on the 40-man but lacking in experience.

Upgrading the rotation for 2026 makes plenty of sense but it appears the club doesn’t have a ton of spending capacity. Reportedly, owner Jim Crane would prefer to avoid the competitive balance tax in 2026. RosterResource projects them for a $218MM CBT number next year. That’s more than $20MM below next year’s $244MM base threshold but the club also has other needs to address this winter. Trading someone like Christian Walker or Jake Meyers might free up some extra space but it’s somewhat tight for now.

So far, their rotation additions have been of the low-cost wild card variety. They took a flier on former top prospect Nate Pearson, signing him to a $1.35MM guarantee. Now they’ve added Weiss into the mix as well. Perhaps there’s a more surefire rotation upgrade over the horizon. For now, the Astros are making a modest bet that Weiss transfer some of his strong KBO results to the MLB level. For his part, Weiss gets a nice paycheck despite still having no major league experience.

Reporter Daniel Kim first reported that the two sides were close to a deal. Brian McTaggart of MLB.com reported that an agreement was in place for a major league pact and that Weiss will be a starter. Jesse Rogers of ESPN reported the guarantee, the presence of a ’27 option and the possibility for the deal to go beyond $10MM. Chandler Rome of The Athletic specified that the option is a club option.

Tigers Sign Drew Anderson

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The Tigers announced the signing of righty Drew Anderson to a one-year, $7MM contract. There’s a $10MM club option for the 2027 season. Anderson, a client of Turner-Gary Sports, is expected to compete for a rotation spot. Detroit had an opening on the 40-man roster and didn’t need to make a corresponding move.

Anderson, 32 in March, bounced around the big leagues a few years ago. He got brief looks in five straight seasons from 2017 to 2021, spending time with the Phillies, White Sox and Rangers. He posted a 6.50 earned run average in 44 1/3 innings spread across those five seasons.

He went overseas for the 2022 season, joining the Hiroshima Carp of Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball. He had a pretty good run as a Carp, posting a 3.05 over two seasons in Hiroshima. On the heels of that performance, he tried coming back to North America. The Tigers gave him a minor league deal in January of 2024. He didn’t make the team out of camp and was pitching for the SSG Landers of the Korea Baseball Organization by the end of April.

His first year in Korea went quite well. He tossed 115 2/3 innings over 24 appearances with a 3.89 ERA. His 10.7% walk rate was a bit high but he struck out 31.9% of batters faced and got grounders on 45.8% of balls in play. The Landers re-signed him for 2025 and his performance this year was even better. He made 30 starts and logged 171 2/3 innings with a 2.25 ERA, 35.3% strikeout rate, 7.3% walk rate and 45.9% ground ball rate.

In the past few days, a handful of teams have agreed to deals with players returning from stints overseas. The Astros agreed to a one-year, $2.6MM deal with Ryan Weiss, who had been pitching in Korea. Anthony Kay, who has been in Japan, got a two-year, $12MM deal from the White Sox. The Blue Jays made a big splash by agreeing to a three-year, $30MM deal with Cody Ponce.

Anderson’s numbers in 2025 were fairly close to Ponce’s in a few areas. Ponce’s 36.2% strikeout rate and 5.9% walk rate were both slightly ahead. His 45.7% ground ball rate was just barely behind Anderson’s. Ponce posted a 1.89 ERA, coming out slightly ahead of Anderson.

While the numbers might suggest a narrow gap between the two, the industry consensus is that Ponce is further ahead of Anderson based on his stuff. To illustrate, this piece from Eric Longenhagen and James Fegan of FanGraphs pegged Ponce as a #4 starter on a good team who should earn $20-25MM on a two-year deal, fairly close to what he eventually secured. Anderson, on the other hand, split the two writers. Without naming names, they say one of them felt Anderson could be a decent back-end guy while the other felt he would likely end up as a reliever.

It’s still unknown how much the Tigers are spending but they are making a bet that Anderson can hack it as a big league starter. Detroit’s rotation will be fronted by Tarik Skubal, with Reese Olson, Casey Mize and Jack Flaherty in behind him. Anderson will presumably be competing for the #5 spot in spring training alongside guys like Keider Montero, Troy Melton, Ty Madden and Sawyer Gipson-Long. The Tigers have been connected to free agents such as Zac Gallen, Ranger Suárez and Michael King, so it’s possible they change up the picture between now and when camp opens.

Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic first reported that the Tigers and Anderson reached a one-year deal with a club option. The Athletic’s Cody Stavenhagen suggested Detroit views the righty as a starter.

Photo courtesy of Junfu Han, Imagn Images

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